Were the Jews without a state before the “creation” of Israel?
By Sadhique AMI
The Jewish Diaspora was offered the first Jewish State in the world in trouble free Russian Far east by the Soviet government - twenty years before the “creation” of Israel - in 1928. Jews from all over the Soviet Union, and from Argentina, Lithuania, France, Latvia, Germany, Belgium, the USA, Poland even from Palestine (Jews who had become disillusioned with the Zionist experience ) arrived there in droves. The Soviet government offered free railroad passage, free food along the way, and 600 Rubles to each settler,- a princely sum at that time. The Jewish area was made an Autonomous Region in 1934 and now it is an autonomous republic, federal status on par with Chechnya.
The republic borders China and is of 36,000 square km in area - more than one and a half times bigger than Israel (i.e. the Zionist occupied Palestine). It’s capital is Birobidzhan and the republic is well advanced in technology with abundant natural resources.
How did the Jewish Autonomous Republic (JAR) came into being?
Establishment of the Jewish Autonomous Region was a necessity for more than two million Jews, living in the Soviet Union. They continued to remain one of the most suffering people of the country. In 1921, the Committee on land settlement of the working Jews (KOMZET), which was headed by P.G.Smidovich, searched for places for the Jews. The first attempts of KOMZET were to create Jewish settlements in Crimea, in the Ukraine. It didn’t meet with success and then the southern region of Priamurye, called then Birsko-Bidzhanskiy region, was recognised as a favourable territory, for the compact moving of the working Jews. This was after an investigation by the expedition led by Professor B.L.Bruk, under a management of V.R.Viliams in 1927.
History of the JAR establishment, as the first and only state territorial unit of the Jews not only in the USSR, but also in the world (Israel was established on a resolution of the UN in 1948), begins from the fact that the Presidium of the General Executive Committee of the USSR passed the decree “On the attaching for KOMZET of free grounds near the Amur River in the Far East for settlement of the working Jews” on March 28, 1928. The decree meant that there was “a possibility of establishment of a Jewish administrative territorial unit on the territory of the called region”. The majority of settlers were not familiar with agriculture. Russian population rendered them all possible support. Many villages and collective farms sent instructors, who trained settlers to agricultural labour. In total since 1928 up to 1933 22,3 thousand persons arrived on the territory of today’s region.
“This is why we need to have a rabbi in this city,” says Oleg. “Why don’t we have one here, in the capital of the [Jewish Autonomous Republic? Because the Jews themselves don’t want it. No one wants to invest any money in this city, because they don’t want two homelands. Jews in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev all receive money. But the only money we get is to help the Jews who are here to leave(for Israel)”.
In Birobidzhan, the one organization that does not lack for money is the Sokhnut office. Funded by private donations, Sokhnut is a Jewish agency with offices worldwide that provide assistance, including financial, to Jews emigrating to Israel.
I thought I just let everyone know about this fact.
